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Tue, 03 Mar 2015 22:22:00 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Why Obama So Dislikes Netanyahuhttp://www.kvoi.com/dennis-prager/why-obama-so-dislikes-netanyahu/
http://www.kvoi.com/dennis-prager/why-obama-so-dislikes-netanyahu/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 14:09:44 +0000http://www.kvoi.com/dennis-prager/why-obama-so-dislikes-netanyahu/There is no question about whether President Obama — along with Secretary of State John Kerry and the editorial pages of many newspapers — has a particular dislike of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But there is another question: Why? And the answer is due to an important rule of life that too few people […]

]]>There is no question about whether President Obama — along with Secretary of State John Kerry and the editorial pages of many newspapers — has a particular dislike of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But there is another question: Why?

And the answer is due to an important rule of life that too few people are aware of:

Those who do not confront evil resent those who do.

Take the case at hand. The prime minister of Israel is at the forefront of the greatest battle against evil in our time — the battle against violent Muslims. No country other than Israel is threatened with extinction, and it is Iran and the many Islamic terror organizations that pose that threat.

It only makes sense, then, that no other country feels the need to warn the world about Iran and Islamic terror as much as Israel. That’s why when Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the United Nations about the threat Iran poses to his country’s survival and about the metastasizing cancer of Islamist violence, he, unfortunately, stands alone.

Virtually everyone listening knows he is telling the truth. And most dislike him for it.

Appeasers hate those who confront evil.

Given that this president is the least likely of any president in American history to confront evil — or even identify it — while Benjamin Netanyahu is particularly vocal and eloquent about both identifying and confronting evil, it is inevitable that the former will resent the latter.

The negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons program are today’s quintessential example. Those who will not confront a tyranny engaged in terror from Argentina to the Middle East, and which is committed to annihilating another country, will deeply resent Israel and its leader.

For those who doubt the truth of this rule of life, there are plenty of other examples.

Take the Cold War.

Those who lived through it well recall that those who refused to confront communism vilified those who did. Indeed, they vilified anyone who merely labeled communism evil. When President Ronald Reagan declared the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” he was excoriated by those who refused to do so. Yet, if the words “evil” and “empire” have any meaning, they perfectly applied to the Soviet Union.

But to those who opposed Reagan, these words could not be applied to the Soviet Union.

New York Times columnists lambasted the president for using such language. The newspaper’s most prestigious columnist at the time, James Reston, condemned Reagan for his “violent criticism of Russians as an evil society.”

Anthony Lewis accused Reagan of using “simplistic theology.” Reagan was using “a black and white standard to something that is much more complex.”

Tom Wicker wrote that “the greater danger” than the spread of communism “lies in Mr. Reagan’s vision of the superpower relationship as Good versus Evil.”

Columnist Russell Baker added his contempt for Reagan’s characterization of the Soviet Union. And, in a long Times article under the headline, “Reagan’s Gaffe,” an unnamed “strategist” for former Vice-President Walter Mondale told the newspaper that “Mr. Reagan had undercut diplomatic efforts of recent months” — exactly as the Times and the Obama administration now describe Benjamin Netanyahu doing to the negotiations with Iran.

(For a detailed description of the reactions to Ronald Reagan’s anti-communism, see Ann Coulter’s book, “Treason.”)

Some 20 years later, when President George W. Bush characterized the regimes of North Korea, Iraq and Iran as an “Axis of Evil,” he was likewise lampooned — as if those mass murderous tyrannies were not evil.

In short, those who refused to characterize the Soviet Union as evil loathed Ronald Reagan and other anti-communists for doing so; and those who objected to the “Axis of Evil” label placed on North Korea, Iran, and Iraq loathed George W. Bush and his supporters. The loathing of Benjamin Netanyahu is simply the latest example of the rule that those who will not confront evil will instead confront those who do. (It’s much safer, after all.)

Since the end of World War II, there has been a name for the people who refuse to confront evil and who resent those who do: leftists.

]]>http://www.kvoi.com/dennis-prager/why-obama-so-dislikes-netanyahu/feed/0Netanyahu And The Congresshttp://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/netanyahu-and-the-congress/
http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/netanyahu-and-the-congress/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 14:14:25 +0000http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/netanyahu-and-the-congress/Prime Minister Netanyahu is addressing Congress this morning, but his real audience are these two men. These two can make an agreement. Congress may or may not decide to accept that agreement. But Prime Minister Netanyahu has a decision to make about such an agreement as well. Hopefully the Congress will act quickly to take […]

But Prime Minister Netanyahu has a decision to make about such an agreement as well. Hopefully the Congress will act quickly to take steps to avert Israel having to act alone to preserve its safety against a nuclear Iran under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. It is that simple. President Obama’s great legacy hunt is pushing the world closer and closer to a major confrontation between Israel and Iran. Congress can stop that momentum. It should do so quickly.

]]>http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/netanyahu-and-the-congress/feed/0Clinton’s, Scandal, and The Imperial Presidencyhttp://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/clintons-scandal-and-the-imperial-presidency/
http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/clintons-scandal-and-the-imperial-presidency/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 14:28:30 +0000http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/clintons-scandal-and-the-imperial-presidency/There are a couple of scandals brewing around Hillary Clinton. One, her use of private email when SoS, is front page NYT. (Which, by the way, may be far more significant than just the preservation of documents for historical purposes.) The other scandal, far less covered, surrounds the Clinton Foundation’s willingness to accept donations from […]

That said, these stories have struck me as yawners. In a party as devoted to its presidential candidates as the Democrats have been of late, this kind of stuff is just water off a ducks back. And this early in the cycle, this stuff is completely off the radar of the general electorate and inoculating for when the general finally rolls around.

And Hillary knows that. Hence her utter lack of discipline when serving as Obama’s Secretary of State. Why worry about something as trivial as email accounts years before votes are cast when your husband got away with perjury while in the White House? Rules, after all, are for little people, not blessed folks like the Clinton’s. It certainly brings to mind the term “imperial presidency.”

Which made me recall a piece by Ross Douthat from back in November of last year. In it, Douthat proposes three factors as origins of Obama’s shift from a candidate that ran in opposition to an imperial presidency to the most imperial of presidents ever. One factor he lays at the feet of the public, the second Congress. It is the third that is most interesting:

Which bring us to the third factor in the president’s transformation: his own ambitions. While running for president, Obama famously praised Ronald Reagan for changing “the trajectory of America” in a way that Bill Clinton’s triangulation did not. And it’s his self-image as the liberal Reagan, I suspect, that’s made it psychologically impossible for this president to accept the limits that his two predecessors eventually accepted on their own policy-making ability.

As I reread that, I thought “nonsense.” It is not Obama’s self-image as “the liberal Reagan” that matters here; it is his inheritance of the Clinton legacy of personality over legality that drives his imperial actions.

It is astonishing to me that Bill Clinton and by extension, Hillary, enjoy such popularity after surviving impeachment. I don’t know anyone that doubts the man committed perjury while president of the United States. But I know a lot of people that do not think that crime was worthy of his removal as POTUS. That the person is more important than the crime shifts the ground under the presidency from servant of the people to anointed ruler – and the true imperial presidency is born.

If you want to know the origins of Obama’s imperial actions, don’t look to Ronald Reagan, look to Bill Clinton. And then look to Bill Clinton’s wife and ask yourself what will happen if the originators of this trend are allowed to further it. It is not a pretty picture.

]]>http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/clintons-scandal-and-the-imperial-presidency/feed/0Shared-Xhttp://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/shared-x/
http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/shared-x/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:11:32 +0000http://kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/shared-x/I’ll be covering Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech on today’s program with an emphasis in hours two and three. In the first hour I am using my time in the Silicon Valley on the campus of Stanford at the Hoover Institution to feature the work of Shared-X by having one of its founders John Denniston join […]

]]>I’ll be covering Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech on today’s program with an emphasis in hours two and three. In the first hour I am using my time in the Silicon Valley on the campus of Stanford at the Hoover Institution to feature the work of Shared-X by having one of its founders John Denniston join me in the studio for the first hour of today’s program. The focus of Shared-X is on causing a dramatic increase in the agricultural yields of South America. Developing countries simply have to supply the need for an ever expanding food base. to do that they need relatively quick, relatively steep hikes in their crop yields.

And that is “Shared-X.” Listen in the first hour to glimpse how it works.

]]>http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/shared-x/feed/0What A Great Weekend To Be A Conservative Political Junkie, But….http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/what-a-great-weekend-to-be-a-conservative-political-junkie-but/
http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/what-a-great-weekend-to-be-a-conservative-political-junkie-but/#commentsSun, 01 Mar 2015 16:21:45 +0000http://kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/what-a-great-weekend-to-be-a-conservative-political-junkie-but/…my mind keeps returning to the abducted Assyrian Christians that I wrote about Thursday. The good news is, in what looks like the first humanitarian act by ISIS to date, some are reporting that a few of the abductees are to be released. CPAC, Club for Growth – the race for the GOP nomination in […]

CPAC, Club for Growth – the race for the GOP nomination in 2016 is now in full swing and Scott Walker seems to be the pretty clear frontrunner at this early and premature moment. When I sat down to write this post I collected roughly a dozen pieces to demonstrate how well Walker is doing and how afraid of him the left seems to be. (It is really not surprising. I was told by an RNC operative in December that if Walker got in people would line up to support him very quickly.) But as I was reading through piece after piece on CPAC, one small piece by Cortney O’Brien on Townhall caught my eye:

Bakers are being forced to bake wedding cakes for gay couples, students are being punished for speaking up for their faith in schools and our soldiers are even being denied the opportunity to read their bibles. Is the kind of freedom loving culture our Founding Fathers envisioned?

Cal Thomas, who moderated the Conservative Political Action Conference’s Saturday morning panel entitled “Religious Freedom in America: Would the Pilgrims Still Be Welcome Here?,” greeted the crowd as “fundamental bigots.” Why? Because that’s how the media often refers to anyone who believes in religious freedom, he explained. Included on the panel were radio host Dana Loesch, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, and Representative Randy Neugebauer (TX-19).

Thomas asked the panelists to pinpoint the biggest threats to religious freedom.

And suddenly Walker’s surge did not seem that important; something else altogether hit me. Obama’s aversion to the use of the military is an infringement on religious expression as well. Jesus said, (John 15:13) “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. ” Our military men and women have volunteered to lay down their lives for our nation and those that our nation chooses to defend – it is an act of love. And for many that act is made out of Christian devotion. Amongst the military people I know their families understand this as well, and their sacrifices are also a part of their religious devotion.

Now , of course, decisions about when and how to use the military are complex and not to be made lightly. That’s not the point. Obama seems to never ever want to put the life of a soldier at risk. Even when he decides to use force, drones and long range bombing predominate – the least risky methods of military action we have at our disposal. On some level, Obama’s policies regarding the use of the military force robs our military men and women of practicing their devotion to God in the way that they see fit.

The antipathy to traditional and deep expressions of faith run strongly through this administration. Obamacare and abortion and fines for refusing service are just the tip of the iceberg. This antipathy is much more fundamental. To them faith is a matter of peace, love and tolerance. For many of us faith is a matter of carefully crafted ethics born in sacrificial love. For them faith seems to be about feeling good about yourself and avoiding pain. For us faith is about working hard and sacrificially to build a character that will allow us to stand tall and actually be good, not just feel like we are.

Arthur C. Brooks says, “In other words, the secret to happiness through work is earned success.” The Obama administration seems to want to deny us the opportunity to earn our success. Whether that success is in military action, or in making enough to pay for our own health insurance, or in developing a deep Christian character, this administration seems driven to deny us any opportunity to do so. Is it any wonder then that the nation seems so moribund?

While Americans should be allowed to read the Bible in any place they see fit and refuse service for things they disagree with, Scott Walker and the rest of an amazing and talented pack need to strike a chord even more fundamental than just those issues. They need to turn Americans loose to express their faith not just through proclamations of love and well-being, but through struggle, sacrifice and hard work. We need to return to the days when our faith is evident in our character, not just our words.

]]>http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/what-a-great-weekend-to-be-a-conservative-political-junkie-but/feed/0Reading For The Red Eye To Meet The Presshttp://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/reading-for-the-red-eye-to-meet-the-press/
http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/reading-for-the-red-eye-to-meet-the-press/#commentsSat, 28 Feb 2015 05:56:24 +0000https://kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/reading-for-the-red-eye-to-meet-the-press/Off to D.C. tonight after the show for a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press. Taking with me galleys of C. J. Box’s Endangered and of Guy P. Benson’s and Mary Katharine Ham’s End of Discussion to pass the red eye hours. Tune in Sunday morning as Chuck Todd will be quizzing Dr. Ben Carson […]

]]>Off to D.C. tonight after the show for a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press. Taking with me galleys of C. J. Box’s Endangered and of Guy P. Benson’s and Mary Katharine Ham’s End of Discussion to pass the red eye hours.

]]>http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/reading-for-the-red-eye-to-meet-the-press/feed/0A Conversation with LDS Elder Jeffrey Hollandhttp://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/a-conversation-with-lds-elder-jeffrey-holland/
http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/a-conversation-with-lds-elder-jeffrey-holland/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 23:29:11 +0000http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/a-conversation-with-lds-elder-jeffrey-holland/Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and a past president of BYU as well as PhD from Yale and an articulate defender of religious freedom around the globe. He joined me in my California studios Friday: Audio: 02-27hhs-holland […]

]]>Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and a past president of BYU as well as PhD from Yale and an articulate defender of religious freedom around the globe. He joined me in my California studios Friday:

HH: I’ve got a special first hour of the show for all my audience across the United States. I’m so honored to have in studio in studio with me Elder Jeffrey Holland, who is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He is also the third such member that I’ve had an opportunity to interview. Elder Dallin Oakes was here a couple of years ago. Before that, Elder Neil Maxwell did a show for me for PBS. I’ve had a lot of good friends in the Quorum. But the third time’s the charm, so maybe I’ll get one of these interviews right, Elder.

JH: Thank you, Hugh, you’re getting it right.

HH: It is very good to have you hear. I want to begin with the obvious most pressing question of the day. Is the dress white and gold? Or is it black and blue?

JH: I just happened to turn on the news this morning, and it looked to me like it was blue and black. But I don’t know.

HH: Have you checked with Mrs. Holland, yet?

JH: No, I haven’t, and I don’t dare do that.

HH: Well, last night, we were looking at this, and I said that’s white and gold, and the Fetching Mrs. Hewitt, to whom I’ve only been married 32 years, how long have you been married?

JH: 52.

HH: 52, so you’ve got 20 years on me. I said are you out of your mind? That’s black and blue. And so we join the parade. And it was, that’s the big news story of the day. It’s so great to have you here. You were at Chapman University earlier today. And you’re out talking about, I assume, religious freedom.

JH: Yes. Let me give a touch of history to that. Ten years ago, when the Fish Interfaith Center was created on the Chapman campus, I was invited to help inaugurate that, participated in the dedication. So as they were talking about a way to commemorate a decade of activity at that interfaith center, they made the mistake to have invited me back. I’m going to come back until I get it right. So this is really a sweet journey down memory lane for me to come back and recall that event ten years ago, and to kind of renew that, and yes, that provided a context to talk a little bit about the current issues of the day, and I called for an interfaith consideration of religious freedom on some of the issues we’re wrestling with nationally.

HH: I want to dive deep into that. Before that, though, I told you when you sat down, when Elder Oakes was here, I got the fun fact and known and tell about Elder Oakes was that, of course, everyone knew he was a great giant of the law.

JH: Yeah.

HH: But that he had, at the time, the most cited law review in the history of the University of Chicago Law Review, and it was on the exclusionary rule. That stunned me.

JH: Yeah.

HH: So I went looking for fun facts and known and tell about Jeffrey Holland. Your son is, one of yours sons…

JH: Yeah.

HH: …is a professor at Harvard Divinity School.

JH: He is. He is indeed, the first Latter Day Saint ever, I suppose, on that faculty.

HH: You see, I’m amazed by that.

JH: It’s a first.

HH: Now Clayton Christensen has been a guest on this show many times.

JH: Yes, right.

HH: And you cite him in your article on religious toleration. But I didn’t think that any Mormon scholar would want to go to the Harvard Divinity School.

JH: Well…

HH: I don’t think they believe in anything there.

JH: Let me explain. He’s not in the clerical business. He teaches history.

HH: Ah.

JH: So he teaches specifically American religious history. So he could teach that almost anywhere, and that’s a pretty good audience, and they are treating him wonderfully well. And he is, if you know the nomenclature in the lay service of our congregations, he is a stake president. That’s over a kind of a diocese, so he’s an actively engaged Latter Day Saint, and teaching on that faculty. It’s probably a sure sign of the apocalypse.

HH: That, I am more than a little surprised on that, but you have produced at least one other educator as well.

JH: Yes.

HH: You yourself was an educator before you joined the Quorum of the Twelve, right?

JH: Right, I was president of Brigham Young University.

HH: And that was after Dallin Oakes and before Rex Lee.

JH: That was, I succeeded Dallin Oakes and preceded Rex Lee.

HH: You see, I’ve had the chance to work with Rex Lee and interview Elder Oakes, so that’s, I kind of now have the trio of BYU. How’s the university faring, in you view?

JH: It’s doing very well. It continues to do well. We’ve, the most painful element of present life at BYU, I think, is the capping of enrollment. We just, we can’t grow. And with the growth of the church, there are more and more young people who would like to be at BYU but aren’t. That gives rise, I’ll finish the sentence you started with my other son. He’s the president of Utah Valley University in Utah County, and so many of the students who would like to have been at BYU are over in that, on that campus with him, and it’s now a campus of 34,000 in Utah.

HH: You’ve got a, 34,000?

JH: Yeah, largest school in the state of Utah now.

HH: Huh, and he’s the president of it?

JH: He’s the president.

HH: Well, you have a PhD from Yale.

JH: I do.

HH: And I want to ask you about, it’s in American studies.

JH: Right.

HH: I don’t know what that means. What’s that mean?

JH: Well, nobody does. That’s why I pursued it.

HH: Well, what did it involve, and who did you learn from?

JH: American studies can kind of be how a university defines it. But at Yale, it was the most attractive program in the nation for me. It was a mix of American literature, American history, and by my choice, American religious development. It’s a fairly fluid, loose kind of program where you can pull together any such threesome and make a mix in American culture. And so for me, it was American Lit, American History, and American Religious Development. And I studied with R.W.B. Lewis, was my principal literature advisor, wrote a wonderful, legendary book as a young man called The American Adam, Adam as the prototypical American, and he studied and wrote about that at a very young age in his career, studied with Sydney Ahlstrom, who was probably the foremost American religious historian in the country at the time, Charles Feidelson, whose specialty was Moby Dick. I had a wonderful, wonderful faculty. It was a wonderful experience.

HH: What was your dissertation about, Elder?

JH: My dissertation was on Mark Twain’s religious sense, when there really was a religious sense, up to his 48th birthday when he published Huckleberry Finn. What we know about Mark Twain usually are his later years, what he called the damned human race years, where he didn’t like anything, because it included people like him, where he was so bitter, and…

HH: He’d lost all his money, right?

JH: Yeah, he lost his money two or three times, and had family misfortune. He lost children, he blamed himself for losing the children, so he was pretty bitter in his old age. But I take him from his early years up to the publication of Huck Finn, where I think there was a wonderful, unique religious sense, hardly really viable in the sense that you and I would talk about religious faith, but he was preoccupied with it.

HH: Really?

JH: His cats were named Famine, Pestilence, Satan and Sin. He just thought about, he worked in religious metaphors. When he moved to a new city, his first friends were always ministers. Wherever he went, he would seek out a ministerial associate. Joe Twichell in Hartford was his closest friend to his death.

HH: Are you still reading Twain?

JH: No, not much. I’m too busy, I guess, unfortunately. I kind of left that behind with this ecclesiastical call.

HH: I have a card in my office in the studio, given to me by my friend, Jan Janura, which is not applicable to you…

JH: Right.

HH: …but it’s nevertheless obviously, it says I drink to make my friends interesting. I love Twain. Twain’s all around me.

JH: Yeah.

HH: But when you got out of Yale…

JH: Yeah.

HH: How did your life proceed? People don’t know you that are not in the LDS community, so give them a little idea of how it proceeded.

JH: Well, I obviously with that kind of a degree, I had some doors opening to me. And it was expected, I think my professors thought I had something of a future in probably teaching American history and American Lit with this religious component. That was the package I was interested in. And I went back to BYU. I went back to be on a religion faculty at my old alma mater. And I think my professors thought they had failed me. I think they thought here is this young man, and now he’s turning out to be a disappointment, because I don’t know that they thought that, but I think they were surprised that I would not have tried something a little bolder or a little more imaginative with that kind of a degree. But in fact, I went back to that unexpectedly, didn’t know that door would be open to me, but went back to be on a religion faculty at BYU, and from there, came the presidency of the university, and since then, this call. So I accept that as God’s hand in my life, and the guidance that we pray for and expect, but don’t always understand when we get it. And I didn’t understand all of it when I was getting it then, but I look back on a wonderful life.

HH: You know, I’m curious about this. In 1995, when I and PBS teamed up to do Searching For God in America, and we approached the authorities of the church, we said can you give us a Mormon to talk to?

JH: Yeah, yeah.

HH: And they said check back with us in a couple of weeks, and they produced Elder Maxwell…

JH: Right.

HH: …and with whom I developed a wonderful friendship. But why didn’t they send me the Yale PhD?

JH: Well, I was very young then. I was just, I was one of Elder Maxwell’s protégées to the extent that he would have had a protégé. That’s the wrong word. I was one of Elder Maxwell’s young friends.

HH: Yeah.

JH: He loved me, and I loved him. And by the way, he loves you. To this day, through the veil, he still loves you.

HH: You know what, the reason I bring him up, last conversation I had with him, I was in my law office and we were talking, because he was a political junkie.

JH: Yes, he was. Oh, was he ever.

HH: As well you know, off the record, always, but talking politics. And he said things are moving at such a speed that I never anticipated, and they weren’t going in the right direction.

JH: Yeah.

HH: Do you agree with that assessment right now?

JH: I do agree with that, and I think if that was 1995 or so…

HH: It was.

JH: Then I would say just 20 years later, it’s more so, yeah. I think it’s probably still going down the path that he saw it going down, but he was a political junkie, and he did talk about it all the time. Some of the rest of us aren’t as trained in politics as he was, but we agree with the direction he saw then, and the direction we’re realizing now.

HH: Well now, I want to broaden it out. When we come back from break, are you still in charge of the church’s operations in Africa, Elder?

JH: I was until eight months ago. Now I have Asia.

HH: Then we’ll talk about that when we come back.

— – – – —

HH: When we went to break, I had read in Elder Holland’s biography that he had had charge of Africa until recently. But now, you’ve been given Asia.

JH: Right.

HH: Is that more or less of a burden?

JH: Well, it’s half the human population.

HH: That’s what I mean.

JH: But we don’t have as much there, yet, as a church. So our congregations aren’t overwhelming there, yet. But in terms of planning and serving and humanitarian relief and that kind of service, yeah, it’s a staggering assignment. I’m just getting acquainted with it. I’ll be going to Vietnam and Cambodia and Thailand in a few weeks, and I’m learning more. I’m on a very steep curve to kind of see what the issues are there.

HH: Does the church have a stake in Singapore?

JH: It does have a stake in Singapore, and it has a mission in Singapore, yes.

HH: Because I have a good friend who’s the Young Life regional director for Asia…

JH: Yeah.

HH: …who works out of Singapore, and it seems like everything happens out of Singapore.

JH: Yeah, Singapore’s a central spot for us, has been for a long time, and we’ve run a significant portion of Southeast Asia out of Singapore for a long time. With growth, we start to break that out and have some local centers of strength, but Singapore was a very central spot for us for a very long time.

HH: So Elder Holland, you’ve got this vast global perspective – Africa, Asia, before that, who know what else, and it seems to me that intolerance is on the rise not just in the United States where it’s actually kind of gentle. But today, an American blogger was hacked to death in Bangladesh. He was an atheist. He’s also Bangladeshi. And he was in the Hitchens mold.

JH: Yeah.

HH: A new thinker, in quotes.

JH: I’m with you.

HH: No one should ever be attacked that way, but it seems to me endemic that people of faith, and people of no faith at all, are all coming under threats of violence.

JH: Well, it seems like every day, I had not heard that incident, but these incidents that we read about or hear about almost literally every day, I think, are genuinely frightening. We do have, the Middle East is another area that I supervise, so I watch very carefully, and read with some anxiety what can happen and does happen in those locations. I visited with some Maronite leaders in Lebanon recently, and they’re just, they’re just very fearful – fearful for their lives and their safety, especially in a spot like Lebanon, but also worrying about Christian flight. They’re very concerned that there won’t be any Christians left in the Middle East if this kind of atmosphere prevails, if this kind of threat continues, and whether it’s a physical threat and the loss of life, or whether it’s just to be uncomfortable to be a Christian. That’s a legitimate concern in lots of places in the world.

HH: And I’m sure the prayers of religious believers of all sorts across the globe are with the 300 plus Assyrian Christians who have been kidnapped by Islamic State.

JH: Yeah, I was just thinking of that example.

HH: Yeah, and so I just was reminded when you were president of BYU, you opened the LDS Center in Jerusalem, correct?

JH: I did. I did.

HH: How does that fare? And tell people about Israel’s approach to religious freedom.

JH: Well, we were only able to, we had, let me start back. With, in the aftermath of the Six Day War in the 60s, we took our first students into Jerusalem, a Christian campus, Latter Day Saint people obviously very interested in the Holy Land. So we took our first students in, in ’67 and ’68 and ’69, and then all those years watched for a place to house them. We had lived in hotels, we’d taken them to whatever accommodation we could find, and finally got a piece of property on Mount Scopus, of all places. That’s a miracle in its own right.

HH: Wow, yes.

JH: But we got that property and built the center, and it’s been prosperous ever since. We’re 25 years now in that wonderful building. Our architect was cited for and received the Israel prize partly for the work on our center. It is an absolutely gorgeous architectural piece. Teddy Kollek said to me personally that he thought it…

HH: The mayor of Jerusalem.

JH: …the mayor of Jerusalem who helped us in a courageous way to get that building built in the name of tolerance and religious freedom. But when I took him through it at the conclusion of the construction, he said this may well be the most beautiful building built in Jerusalem in the last one hundred years. That’s a bold statement. Anyway, we’re there, and it does do well, but we have challenges, and we have to have our young people, have our students mindful that there are places they don’t go on a certain day. There are things they won’t do on a certain day. And we have a very good relationship with the Israeli Security Forces and the local police. And they will every morning give us a briefing and say do not go to the old city, or of course, we will never go to, for example, most parts of Bethlehem. There’ll be places in Hebron we wouldn’t go. We just, safety and protection for our students is our first concern. But once they’re there, and if they can be safe, we want them to have a great experience in the Holy Land. And so far, it’s working, 25 years of success.

HH: That is amazing. Now I want to contrast that with other parts of the world where no missionaries of any faith can go.

JH: Right.

HH: And I think more doors are closing than are opening across the globe. Do you agree with that?

JH: Yes, and I have two elements of those. Much of that’s in Asia, if you broadly define Asia, and certainly Communist China, and the Middle East. Many of the Islamic nations, we don’t have any missionaries. And if we have any presence at all, it’ll be an ex-pat or somebody at the embassy, or somebody on a corporate assignment. We try to serve them. We try to provide a congregational experience for them, small as that congregation might be, but no attempt to do missionary work, and probably many of those doors closing.

HH: You see, I asked Jeb Bush two days ago what the tap root of the Islamic State was, and he thought it was civilizational alienation. And then Mark Steyn yesterday was talking about a commitment to religious freedom is really essential, of all breadth, of all faiths…

JH: Yeah, I, we agree.

HH: …in order to have a democratic success.

JH: Yeah.

HH: This is your assessment as well?

JH: Yeah, and it was the heart of my message last night on the Chapman campus is, because I was invited in the name of an interfaith activity, thus the ten year commemoration of the Fish Center. So, but my interfaith message was nothing could combine us better, nothing calls for our service more, nothing, there’s almost nothing on which we could stand shoulder to shoulder given circumstances of today than this matter of religious freedom and the chance for every man or woman of whatever religious conviction to have the freedom to say what they want to say and believe what they want to believe. And much of that is under threat in this nation and around the globe.

HH: You know, your friend, Jeff Shields, who helps pave the way for these, provide me with the article that you gave to the J. Reuben Clark Society, in it you quote David Brooks, Jonathan Last…

JH: Right.

HH: Michael Novak, none of these are Mormon thinker/scholars…

JH: Yeah.

HH: You also quote Clayton Christensen who is…

JH: And Hugh Hewitt.

HH: And it just seems to me, though, that you’re, that the group of people who are rallying around religious freedom is growing, but not fast enough.

JH: It’s not fast enough, but I think it’s more articulate, Hugh. I think it’s more focused. I think there is more interfaith, if you broadly define a phrase like interfaith, I think it’s not growing fast enough, and who knows the ultimate growth, but I do believe there’s more interest, there is more shared participation, very bright people, very articulate people, I think, are talking more and more about this and saying it does matter, and it needs to matter to more of us.

HH: Now at the law school at BYU, are you training up people to defend 1st Amendment freedoms all across the land?

JH: Just had that discussion with the law faculty at Chapman, as long as we’re talking about a faculty member at Chapman. We had that discussion with Dean Campbell and the others there, and yes, we are doing that at the law school in Provo, and we want to do more in association with like-minded faculties at places like Chapman. So another one of the reasons that I’m here in town.

— – – – –

HH: 15 million Mormons now, right, Elder?

JH: Right.

HH: And of those, 83, 85,000 are in mission fields right now?

JH: Right, about 85.

HH: All right, now I have had a lot of Mormon interns, two of whom have gone on mission. Marlon is not currently, and never went on a mission. But I would, one went to Zimbabwe.

JH: Yeah.

HH: One stayed in San Antonio, Texas.

JH: Yeah.

HH: The first was a man, the second was a woman. I would wonder what the burden of having all these young people on the road in an era of religious intolerance is like.

JH: It is a burden. It is a worry. We proceed with great faith. We say a lot of prayers on behalf of those young people, because they’re your sons and daughters and my sons and daughters, collectively speaking, and they’re someone’s child. And we worry about them a lot. But the miracle is that every indication we have, and we try to be very careful, we try to be very sensitive about where they work and to what locations they’re assigned and so on and so forth, but having said that, the statistics are that they’re safer in the mission field than they were at home. The chances for an accident, the chances for a serious difficulty or a death, are really minimal. We have been very, very blessed. We knock on wood and say our prayer, and don’t want to be arrogant about that, because there is a very high risk. But we’re greatly blessed, and they continue to come They continue to serve. And those numbers will increase. We’re projecting out probably within four years, the baseline number for the missionary force will be something around 100,000.

HH: Wow. You know, I have a good friend who’s just been called to be mission president, he and his wife, in a part of Peru, Dan Rasmussen.

JH: Yes, yes.

HH: And I said I could never be a Mormon, because you know, in the middle of the, your wonderful law career, they pluck you up and they send you off. You know, watch out, Shields, you could end up anywhere.

JH: Yeah, faithful people.

HH: You did that in Chile, right?

JH: Yeah, I did. I did.

HH: And so what’s that job involve?

JH: Well, it’s, it involves just putting your life on hold and wrapping things up. And you get two or three months to get your life in order, and then you go and do nothing. You do nothing for 36 months but worry about these kids. You just….

HH: That’s…

JH: That’s what you do, all day and all night. You go to bed hoping the phone will not ring, because the ringing phone is a bad sign. Again, I have to say, we’re very blessed. We have very, very few challenges, but there will be an incident here, a threat there, a potential kidnapping somewhere. With 85,000 young people out there…

HH: How many countries are they in?

JH: 120-125.

HH: That’s remarkable.

JH: Yeah.

HH: Now given that spread, that spectrum, how does the United States stack up in terms of the climate of openness to religious flourishing and freedom, of all sorts?

JH: Yeah, well that’s a good question, Hugh, because I think in some ways, as secularism prevails and the 21st Century unfolds, in some ways, we’re less reverent, we’re less spiritual, maybe less religiously affiliated as a nation. But within that, there is an emerging group, a subset, if you will, that I think is more interested, are more willing to listen to the missionaries. Maybe a little harder to find, but when you find them, these are people that probably are more interested now in a way than they were 20 years ago. Maybe it’s the issue of the day, maybe it’s the kind of political and social phenomenon you’ve already referred to, but something is getting their attention that say maybe we ought to have more faith, maybe there ought to be more religion, maybe there ought to be more devotion. So maybe it’s a kind of a polarization. I wouldn’t say sheep or goats or wheat and tares. That sounds too ominous. I’m not an apocalyptic guy. But…

HH: I’m glad to hear that.

JH: But I do think that probably those who are less interested are more obvious in the 21st Century, but I think those who do entertain faith are spectacularly loyal and devoted, and good people. And whether they join the LDS Church or not is beside the point. In their own faith or the quest for a new faith, that’s more attractive and more visible, I think, more obvious than I think it was even a quarter of a century ago.

HH: Phillip Johnson, a great Berkeley law professor, once told me, he went to Harvard in the 50s, and said in Harvard in the 50s, everyone was a Christian.

JH: Yeah.

HH: Harvard in the 70s, nobody was a Christian. That’s when I was there.

JH: Right.

HH: And now, Harvard in 2015, you know which side everyone is on.

JH: Yeah, exactly.

HH: So there’s great clarity.

JH: That’s a nice way to say better than what I just said. I do think that’s probably what’s happening. But a little…

HH: But the clarity comes, I don’t know if you’ve seen the clip of Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic posted it of a UCLA student gathering, where they refused to admit a woman into the UCLA judicial council because she was Jewish.

JH: Yeah.

HH: They had to revers it. It’s illegal.

JH: Yeah, sure. Yeah, of course.

HH: I mean, it’s clearly illegal, but that there’s such a little call on conscience about respecting people’s individual liberty.

JH: Yeah, there’s, I think there’s more and more to that. And the whole issue of, I’m very concerned about the little incident in Houston where somebody could subpoena sermon notes. I mean, you know…

HH: Or the Atlanta fire chief. We’ll come back after the break and talk with Elder Jeffrey Holland of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

— – – – –

HH: When we went to break, you referenced an incident in Houston. Right now, I’m helping Alliance Defending Freedom raise money to defend the Atlanta fire chief who was fired because he circulated his own Bible study.

JH: Yeah, an incredible story, incredible story.

HH: And then you mentioned Houston.

JH: Yeah.

HH: …where the mayor went after every pastor in the city that disagreed with her, and in both of those, I think, we’ll win. But we shouldn’t have to fight these battles.

JH: No, no, that is unprecedented in American history. That is absolutely, it may be unprecedented in Western civilization. I don’t want to be overly dramatic about it, but I think those are warning signs. And it is then legitimate to be talking about the future of religious freedom in this country. We should be talking about it for the whole globe. But I think we have to take seriously what those portend, and to be aggressive, appropriately aggressive, on the front of that to make sure that that first right granted, the first human right in this nation, was its religious freedom. That is the first element of the Bill of Rights, and as you know, you’re the legal scholar, but I think we can’t assume that some other right, or some other civil privilege is going to trump something as fundamental as free expression.

HH: And you quote in your article Mike McConnell, a great professor of law at Stanford, formerly on the 10th Circuit.

JH: Yeah.

HH: I might get to see him next week, an old colleague with Rex Lee at the Department of Justice…

JH: That’s right.

HH: …saying the first freedom is double-barreled.

JH: Yeah, double-barreled. That’s right.

HH: Isn’t that a great phrase?

JH: It is a great, yeah…

HH: McConnell’s brilliant, of course, and he shouldn’t have left the bench, doggone it, Mike McConnell.

JH: Yeah.

HH: But maybe Utah was too cold?

JH: Maybe, probably.

HH: How often are you in Utah? And how often are you not there?

JH: Well, I’m not there very often, but it’s been very mild. We’ve had a very mild winter. It’s a good winter to be in Utah.

HH: Okay, so the 10th Circuit was pretty robust. McConnell’s founded this Center for Religious Liberty. You’ve got BYU up and running like this. So are you optimistic about the United States’ commitment to religious freedom?

JH: Well, I am, I am, because I’m a hopeless romantic. I’m an optimistic guy by nature. But I don’t think it’s going to be easy. I don’t think it’s simple. And I don’t think the forces that are aligned against such freedom, I don’t think they’re incidental. I don’t think they’re insignificant. I think this is a battle. I think this is a fight. But I think it’s a fight we can win. I think it’s a fight we have to win. If the founding fathers meant what they meant, with those kinds of religious protections and free expression, we simply are obligated as Americans, to say nothing of Latter Day Saints, in my case, we’re obligated to fight this fight.

HH: Next hour, I’m going to talk to Lindsey Graham, and we’re going to talk about the Islamic State…

JH: Yeah.

HH: …and the rampage of the Islamic State ought to chill everybody.

JH: Yeah.

HH: And they are, of course, they’ll be the first in line to decapitate our critics on the left…

JH: That’s right.

HH: …those who don’t like organized religion. But we don’t stop doing that. But do you sense that the left is figuring out in the country, or the secular absolutists, I always talk about them abstractly, but they’re real people and they have real concerns about theocracy, etc.

JH: Sure.

HH: But do you think they have any sense of the fact that the world is held together by religious toleration, not threatened by it?

JH: Well, that’s part of the message, I think, that we’re trying to get out. I don’t know whether they get it or not. And they wonder whether I get things or not. But I believe that there really needs to be a return to some of these founding issues. I quoted John Adams last night, I quoted George Washington last night. You can’t lose with sources like that.

HH: No, you can’t. No, you can’t.

JH: But you know, the idea that a democracy functions on the premise of a moral, religious people, that is simply the way democracy can work, and it cannot work without. I do not believe it can work without morally-founded, for me, religious people. You can define religious as broadly as you want, but people need to obey the unenforceable. That’s Clayton’s phrase.

HH: And expand on that, because Clayton Christensen, great Harvard Business School professor a frequent guest…

JH: Yes.

HH: How Do You Measure Your Life, one of my favorite books.

JH: Yeah, sure.

HH: But you told that story in here about his friend from, I think, Chile.

JH: Yeah, no, from China.

HH: China.

JH: From China, this is Communist China, who comes and says, Clayton said what surprised you? And he said what surprised you about your study in America? And by the way, here’s a communist Chinese, wonderful man, coming to study capitalism and democracy, the two things that I guess he was missing most.

HH: Let’s hope he gets it right.

JH: Yeah, but he said what surprised you, and he said what surprised me is that fundamental to democracy, and fundamental to capitalism is a religious sense, is a religious life. And out of that grew this idea that what we have to enforce is the unenforceable. You have to voluntarily choose to be honest. You have to voluntarily honor a contract. You have to voluntarily care about what the course of your community is, or the integrity of your leaders. We can’t hire enough policemen to do that. You can’t get a government oppressive enough or large enough to manage all of that. That has to be something from the human heart. That has to be something from the soul. And that’s what a morally honest and a religiously oriented people do for democracy. And I’m not saying everybody has to be a Latter Day Saint. I’m not saying they have to be a Catholic or a Baptist. But there has to be some agreement on religious conviction and religious morality that doesn’t make religion and ugly word, or devotion to God something that’s politically unacceptable. This country will be in trouble if that’s the direction we go.

HH: And it requires, also, genuine affection for people who are not in agreement with you on matters of first principles.

JH: That’s right. I said in a press conference in Salt Lake a few weeks ago that the greatest guarantee that we have is that for party A to extend to party B precisely the privileges and protections that they want party B to extend to party A. We’ve simply got to be that compatible, that cordial, if you will, in a Christian cordiality. I guess that’s the Golden Rule. I guess that’s do unto others.

HH: …was invited by you to, by the authorities of the church, to go to BYU and to lecture. And I think you folks have been really trying to do this, maybe as far back as that PBS series with Neil Maxwell 20 years ago.

JH: It may well be, Hugh, that that’s where that started.

HH: I don’t think that.

JH: No, but we have been working at that, and we have had very distinguished guests, and some wonderful friendships. In that same spirit, we invited George Wood, head of the Church of God, and I guess the largest, maybe the largest Protestant congregation in the world. George came out, and we hosted him, and that went so well that he invited me to Springfield. And we’ve just developed a wonderful, wonderful personal relationship.

HH: Oh, really?

JH: Those are blessings to us that we haven’t had enough of, and we haven’t done enough about in earlier years, and we want to be a little more, we want to be a little more interfaith oriented. We want to outreach better than we’ve done.

HH: One more quick segment with Elder Holland when we come back./

— – —

HH: Elder Jeffrey Holland, it’s been a great honor and privilege to have you in the studio with me. Thank you so much for coming.

JH: Privilege, Hugh, my privilege.

HH: I thought I’d give you just a couple of minutes. In your piece, you talk about family. And everyone’s kind of figuring out now that family is the cornerstone of everything. But I can’t imagine, I’ve raised three children, and God bless it, and they’re wonderful, loving kids with whom I’m close. But I really wouldn’t want to do it now, because it’s a tough situation.

JH: Yeah, it’s hard.

HH: What are you telling your young people?

JH: I’m telling young people to believe. I’m telling parents to believe. I’m telling them both, families and participants in the family of all age to believe in God, and to believe in help, and to believe in the future, to believe in themselves, and stay close. And the family is the fundamental unit of society. It is certainly the fundamental unit of a church. I guess, probably, it’s the fundamental unit of everything. And our friend, Michael Novak, said once this law obtains that when things go well with the family, life goes well. And when things do not go well win the family, life is, can be really miserable. Let’s start there. Let’s work better at home. Let’s work better with parents and children. And if we can master some principles in that little circle, maybe we can extend them to the state and the nation and the world. But better to start closer to home, and I believe God will bless us in every way to succeed in that most fundamental mission we all have, and that is to save and bless the next generation.

HH: And in terms of, I always say you’re only as happy as your least happy child.

JH: That’s right.

HH: Is the church working to extend its educational system and its family support network across the globe at the same time? We only have about a minute.

JH: Yeah, not so much institutionally, but certainly more in the home. We’re trying to provide more curricular materials, more teaching helps for parents to talk to children, children respond to parents. We probably won’t be doing a lot of brick and mortar, but we’ll be teaching more in the home from parents, with parents, to children. We believe in that for as long as we’re in the business.

HH: Elder Jeffrey Holland, great to have you, thank you for coming by.

]]>http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/a-conversation-with-lds-elder-jeffrey-holland/feed/0Senator Lindsey Graham On The Islamic State and the Urgent Need for U.S. Actionhttp://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/senator-lindsey-graham-on-the-islamic-state-and-the-urgent-need-for-u-s-action/
http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/senator-lindsey-graham-on-the-islamic-state-and-the-urgent-need-for-u-s-action/#commentsSat, 28 Feb 2015 00:24:08 +0000http://kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/senator-lindsey-graham-on-the-islamic-state-and-the-urgent-need-for-u-s-action/United States Senator Lindsey Graham joined me on Friday’s show to talk about the spreading menace of the Islamic State and Iran’s path to near-nuclear status: Audio: 02-27hhs-graham Transcript: HH: I’m joined now by United States Senator Lindsey Graham. Senator Graham, great to have you back, welcome. LG: I did not know Leonard Nimoy died […]

HH: I’m joined now by United States Senator Lindsey Graham. Senator Graham, great to have you back, welcome.

LG: I did not know Leonard Nimoy died until you just mentioned that.

HH: Yes, he did. He slipped the mortal coil today, and the blue and the gold today is for the Star Trek colors. He was 83 years old. He had a great life. Were you a Trekker?

JG: Yeah, I mean, anybody our age grew up with the show. Yeah, absolutely.

HH: Yeah, he’s part of the cultural furniture, you betcha. Senator, well, so is the white and gold versus blue and black dress. Have you had a chance to look at that, yet?

JG: No, I missed that one. You can’t be everything to everybody, so I’m trying not to be.

HH: Let’s get serious. And I am now worried after watching IS rampage through the Assyrian Christian villages…

JG: Right.

HH: …that the old cliché about the danger of fighting the last war has been replaced by a new concern that we’re emphasizing not fighting any war.

JG: Right, and yeah, I think President Obama has put himself in a box. He’s not going to be Bush no matter what, and to him, Bush represents the use of military force on the ground in Syria and Iraq. At the end of the day, ISIL is a direct threat to the United States. I believe that. What you see happening in Syria is the result of not having a ground component to stop their advances. And every Christian and every person who believes in just human decently should be appalled by what’s going on in Syria. And you can’t stop this rampage until you get a regional force with an American component to go in on the ground, kill and capture these guys. And I fear they’re coming here next.

HH: Now I talked to former Governor Bush two days ago, and he said it appeared to him as though President Obama’s slowly building back to the 10,000 American troops in Iraq that ought never to have left. Do you agree with that?

LG: Yes. Yeah, but in the worst possible way – slow and incremental. He doesn’t have the right troop mix. 3,000 are there today, too many to be hostages, too few to do the job. What do you need to go into Mosul? You’re going to have an Iraqi Security Force component, and you’re going to have the Kurds. The Iraqi Security Forces are basically now a Shiia army, because they’ve been dominated by the Iranians, and they’re seen by the Sunnis and the Kurds as not a reliable partner. If you don’t have an American component as you march into Mosul, I fear that you’re going to have a conflict not just between ISIL and the Iraqi Security Forces, but the Iraqi Security Forces and Sunnis in Mosul. America keeps that from happening.

HH: How big of a component does that have to be, Senator Graham?

LG: If you got to the battalion level in terms of trainers, you have forward air controllers. You have an aviation battalion, where you have Apaches, AC-130 gunships to make sure that the Iraqis when they get in a firefight they win, when you have the quick reaction force, when you add up all the intel/logistic guys, you’re somewhere in the eight to ten thousand range, if you put trainers and advisors at the battalion level. If you go to the brigade level, you’re probably six or seven thousand, but the higher the risk, the risk comes with less forces embedded with the Iraqi Security Forces. So I want to win. The worst outcome is to go into Mosul and get in a stalemate or lose. So I think somewhere between eight and ten thousand gives you the edge the Iraqi Security Forces and the Kurds would need to not only clear Mosul, but to hold it. That comes from General Jack Keane, who a lot of your viewers may see on, listeners see on Fox. I’m just not making this up. I’m a military lawyer. I ask people who have been in the fight for the last decade how do you win, and that’s what they tell me.

HH: Now last night, Charles Krauthammer on the O’Reilly Factor said the most unbelievable thing is that the Kurds lack. And that just is a blanket statement that they have needs that we’re not meeting. Do you agree with that assessment?

LG: Totally, because the weapons we’re shipping to the Kurds in Baghdad are intercepted by the Iraqi government that’s dominated by the Iranians. So they’re getting some weapons, but not the weapons we want them to have to go into Mosul and maintain the fight and win the fight. So you’ve got a problem in Baghdad where you have a Shiia-dominated government, with an Iranian influence that sees the Sunnis and the Kurds as potential adversaries. I’m going to introduce the Kurdish Emergency Relief Act that will allow $500 million dollars a day to go directly to Irbil, to the Kurds, so they can get what they need to make sure we win this fight. It is in our interest to defeat ISIL not just in Mosul, but Anbar Province, throughout Iraq. And I would just want to stress this. You can’t maintain your gains in Iraq unless you deal with Syria. And that’s when this strategy completely falls apart.

HH: Now this is a small side note, but I am curious. You use ISIL, and the President uses ISIL. I use Islamic State. Some people say ISIS. Why do you use ISIL? Why does the President use ISIL?

LG: I don’t know why he does it, but let me tell you why I do, and you picked up on that. That’s pretty good. The Islamic State in the Levant includes what countries?

HH: Syria, Lebanon, Iraq.

LG: Jordan, right.

HH: Jordan.

LG: Yeah, so when you use ISIL, you’re recognizing that their ambitions are not just in Syria. They also include Lebanon and Jordan.

HH: I got it. Hold…

LG: I think that’s where they’re headed.

HH: Hold one second. We’ll be right back with Lindsey Graham, United States Senator from South Carolina.

—- – —

HH: When we went to break, he was explaining he uses ISIL because of the regional ambitions of the Islamic State, which extend at least into four states, and indeed maybe Turkey. Do you think Turkey is playing a double game here, Senator Graham?

LG: Yeah, Turkey is basically not going to go all in against ISIL, because they’re not going to allow us to defeat ISIL and turn Syria over to Assad and the Iranians. No Arab force is going in on the ground in Syria, even if we go with them, until you promise to take Assad out of power, not just defeat ISIL, because the Sunni Arabs in the region and the Turks are not going to give Syria to the Iranians. So this Obama obsession with a nuclear deal with Iran is preventing a regional coalition to be formed, because he will not take Assad on. The people we’re training to in to fight ISIL, the Free Syrian Army being trained in Jordan and Saudi Arabia and other places, they’re being told by us you can only fight ISIL. And when I asked a question regarding the authorization for use of military force if Assad’s air power is used against the people we’ve trained to fight ISIL, can we engage that air power to protect the people we’ve trained, and they said no. The authorization to use military force does not allow us to protect the people we train, which shows we have a hands-off policy toward Assad, because we don’t want to offend the Iranians.

HH: So this week, the Iranians blew up a paper mache American aircraft carrier. Did you happen to see that?

LG: Yeah, okay, so we’re negotiating with the Iranians over their nuclear ambitions. If we get a deal with the Iranians, the sanctions will be relieved, billions of dollars, with a B, going to the Iranian economy. Look what they’re doing without a nuclear weapon. The Iranians, as I speak, have toppled a pro-American government in Yemen. The Houthis who took down the pro-American government are Iranian-backed. They’re a Shiite militia. And we’ve lost our eyes and ears regarding al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Assad is Iranian-backed. He’s dominating Syria. Hezbollah controls Lebanon. And Shiia militias are roaming all over Iraq, inspired and controlled by the Iranians. Without a nuclear weapon, they’re using their resources to topple four Arab capitals, and Bahrain is next. It is insane to negotiate with them regarding lifting sanctions. They’re not going to take the money and build schools and hospitals. They’re going to use the money to further destabilize the region and build advanced weapons like ICBM’s.

HH: Well, this goes to the nature of how foreign affairs work. I don’t know if you ever read Essence of Decision by Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, or Robert Kennedy’s memoir, Thirteen Days. But it’s clear that the weakness in Vienna and the Bay of Pigs in the early Kennedy years led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

LG: yes.

HH: And I think this weakness is now cascading. Is that your assessment?

LG: Yes, totally. Three decisions the President, back to back, have caused this problem. You know, the rise of ISIL was a predictable outcome of not leaving troops behind in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq were on their knees. They were just about decimated. If Obama had left a follow on force, Iraq would not have fractured. His decision three years ago, or two years ago, I guess, not to impose a no-fly zone recommended by his entire national security team, allowed Assad to hang on. It allowed the Free Syrian Army to be decimated by Assad. And it led to the rise of ISIL. Drawing a red line against Assad when he used chemical weapons and doing nothing about it, all of these things came together to allow ISIL to come from the ashes to be what it is today.

HH: Now Senator Graham, on Wednesday, I talked with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. And you began this interview by saying President Obama, whatever he does, he’s not going to be Bush no matter what. And I asked Jeb Bush if he was worried that if he became president, he would be burdened by the prospect of starting a third Bush war in Iraq, his father, his brother, then himself, and he said no, the legacy wouldn’t. But would you be concerned about that?

LG: No, if he articulated what we’re trying to do in Iraq. Here’s the question for your listeners. Is this a regional war that we’re interjecting ourselves in, for nation building exercise? Or is this an effort by America to protect America? I believe ISIL is a direct threat to our homeland. Over 4,000 foreign fighters have joined their ranks with Western passports. It’s just a matter of time until they infiltrate the United States and hit us here. The sooner you can disburse this group, put them on the run, and begin to decimate them, the safer we will be. So the argument I would make if I was president, that going in on the ground in conjunction with the Iraqi Security Forces, regional forces to make sure that ISIL is degraded and destroyed, is a necessary action to protect the American homeland. And once you clear Mosul, Anbar Province, and once you degrade and destroy ISIL in Syria, you’re going to have to have a long term commitment, the world, just not the United States, to hold that territory and build up the people who have been decimated so they can keep this from happening again. This is a generational struggle. The best way to protect America, Hugh, in my view, is to keep the war over there. And that’s going to require us to have a presence over there.

HH: Last question, I also asked Governor Bush, I want to ask you. What is the tap root of the Islamic State? Where is this coming from?

LG: The Islamic State is a direct result of al Qaeda in Iraq being allowed to regenerate. It is a separation between al Qaeda…

HH: But what attracts, I mean, what attracts young people in Brooklyn…

LG: Oh, I’m sorry.

HH: …what attracts young people in Brooklyn, and young London girls, 15 and 16 year old, and 4,000 Frenchmen to go and do this? What’s driving the attraction?

LG: It could be the acceptance of their religious doctrine, that as a good Muslim, they have to purify their religion. And I want to be part of an effort to bring about the pure religion that ISIL claims that is required by the Koran. It could be young people who are making foolish decisions, seeking an adventure, trying to find more meaning to their life. I can’t explain why Hitler was Hitler. I can’t explain what makes radical Islam adopt this brutality. It is a religious-motivated movement. They believe they’re compelled by God to crucify Christians or make them pay taxes. They’re compelled by God to purify their religion by killing all who refuse to accept their way of worshipping Allah. Don’t try to overly explain it. Defeat it. And the way you defeat it is you empower people who reject that way of thinking. And here’s the good news. Most Muslims are not buying what these guys are selling. Most fathers don’t want to turn their daughters over to ISIL. We need to give them the capacity to say no. This is a long struggle, the outcome of which matter to us.

]]>http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/senator-lindsey-graham-on-the-islamic-state-and-the-urgent-need-for-u-s-action/feed/0Chuck Todd On The CPAC Proceedingshttp://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/chuck-todd-on-the-cpac-proceedings/
http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/chuck-todd-on-the-cpac-proceedings/#commentsSat, 28 Feb 2015 01:14:41 +0000http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/chuck-todd-on-the-cpac-proceedings/Meet The Press host Chuck Todd joined me for his regular Friday spot and we talked through what CPAC has shown (and not shown) about the state of the GOP race for the 2016 nomination: Audio: 02-27hhs-todd transcript: HH: Of course, it is bitterly cold in the nation’s capital, so of course Chuck Todd of […]

HH: Of course, it is bitterly cold in the nation’s capital, so of course Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet The Press has invited me back to the panel this weekend. Chuck, good to have you on, thank you for the invitation, I understand bring a sweater.

CT: Yeah, well, it’s a little bit chilly. It’s a little bit chilly, and the politics here is getting chillier and chillier, so you know…

HH: Oh, I’m going to talk about Homeland Security in a second, but first, I’ve got to ask you about the big story of the day. Is the dress white and gold or is it black and blue?

CT: Okay, so I saw it as blue and gold. I didn’t see, I thought it was blue and gold. I didn’t see the blue and black aspect of it. But I thought it was blue and gold. It’s funny, we broke down in the Meet the Press shop, we broke down along gender lines on that. The women saw it as white and gold.

HH: Well, you’re, I think I’m secure in my masculinity, even though I saw it as white and gold, and the Fetching Mrs. Hewitt saw it as black and blue. So it might be a D.C.-California thing. But nevertheless…

CT: It’s a bizarre, I have to tell you, it was like what has the internet done to us?

HH: Well, that’s it. The national internet day is going to always commemorate why llamas wear gold and white. I read that last night, and I thought that was the funniest thing.

CT: It’s going to break the internet.

HH: It is. Second big deal, did you actually go on air and discuss the llamas yesterday?

HH: Is it going to make it on the Meet the Press set after Ben Carson and Kevin McCarthy and the panel? Are the llamas going to show up?

CT: You know, only if Putin’s involved. If we can connect it to Putin, and find out one of these llamas was an opposition leader, you know, not to joke about that, but if Putin’s involved, watch out.

HH: Now the big deal, though, is Leonard Nimoy. Are you a Trekker? You’re too young to be a Trekker.

CT: You know, I was more Star Wars, look, come on, Star Trek Wrath of Khan, though, is, you know, one of your ten most important sci-fi movies of all time. So…

HH: I agree, but it’s, he’s a remarkable man. He has an amazing career. The New York Times obituary today goes on and on. But at 83 years old, he accomplished so much. But you guys don’t do obits at Meet the Press, do you?

CT: I do political obits, but not Nimoy in this one, and I’ll be honest, my show is, I need two yours. You know, you joke about it every week. You sit there and you always budget more stories that you think I should be doing. But you know, I’m also trying to figure out, I’m trying to, I just sent a correspondent to Missouri for this crazy story about the suicide of the state auditor.

HH: Yeah.

CT: …because I think, you know, there’s just a lot of stuff going on. This is one week I have, no way I would have room for an obit on that.

HH: I didn’t know Schweich, the auditor. I know a lot of people who knew him very well, and Chuck Todd, they are stunned. He was…

CT: I’ve got, I’m very, I’ve got a lot of good sources, longtime friends in Missouri, very close to a lot of Missouri Republican politicians, and they are just, it is, I mean, he was, many thought, this was their great hope of finally having a Republican governor that might be able to hold it for a couple of terms. There was a lot of people that loved him.

HH: Yeah, it’s an interesting…

CT: He was the great hope.

HH: …side light, I interviewed, I just, David Axelrod two weeks ago, and in his book, Believer, he talks about his father’s suicide, and how whenever the anniversary falls around or certain music plays, he’s always reminded about it. People who have a suicide in their life will watch that story with great interest, but it’s a traumatic deal. So it’s interesting that you’re covering that. I didn’t know that you’d be covering the suicide of State Auditor Schweich in Missouri. Let’s talk about Homeland Security and the shutdown. You’ve got the Majority Leader scheduled. Are you a little worried about that booking, because he might be working on Sunday morning.

CT: I’ll tell you, I was, I’m going to give you a little behind, you know how this works, they were very aggressive. The House leadership folks in general were very aggressive this morning that they wanted to flood, it seemed to me they want to flood the zone on the Sunday shows. Speaker Boehner, Steve Scalise, the whip, Kevin McCarthy, and you know, they were checking in with all of the shows. You know, we’re all gaming, you know, everybody’s gaming. But they wanted to go on. And so literally, you say well, they’ve got the votes. They got this done, you know? And that’s made it, to me, more stunning, just simply because I’m sitting there reading the tea leaves just based on booking, you know, sometimes, and you just assume well, they really must think they’ve got this, because they’re being very, you know, they seem to be very confident. So you’re right, I am nervous about it. But I think, look, the night is still young. They’re trying, they’ve got several options. They could redo the three week and beg Democrats to find, to give them 25 more. I hear rumors of a one week CR. The one thing Boehner can’t do right now, he cannot put that Senate bill on for his own political standing.

HH: Interesting.

CT: He can’t put that Senate bill down right now.

HH: Congressman Mike Pompeo…

CT: Until he knows what the courts are going to do.

HH: Mike Pompeo came on the show yesterday, and said hey, there’s the third way here, which is you pass funding for DHS, which is fully funded, provided that the injunction in Texas remains in place, and the funding ceases the moment the injunction is dissolved or trumped by a different court of appeal.

CT: I wrote this, can I just tell you, Hugh? This is really, I wrote this, we wrote this in First Read three days ago.

HH: No kidding?

CT: I have not understood why the House Republicans have not used the injunction to their advantage, and made it part of this. I think this was a way to get conservatives on board this. This was a way to sort of, you know, the administration, the people I’ve talked to, they think it’s less than 50/50 they’re going to get their stay. Why they’ve not used this court result to their advantage of getting votes is beyond me. I don’t get it.

HH: On that, that’s something to ask the Majority Leader on Sunday.

CT: Absolutely.

HH: …because Mike Pompeo seemed to indicate to me that that was the way forward after the Senate was going to pass the clean bill, so we’ll see. You’ve also got Dr. Ben Carson. Now there are three big gets coming out of this weekend – Scott Walker, Jeb Bush and Ben Carson. And Jeb Bush, I don’t know if he’s going to do any more media. He did my show on Wednesday, he did Sean Hannity today, he got some tough questions, tough reception, good reception, though. It’s better to answer the tough ones. I think Chris Christie’s retreated to New Jersey. But Ben Carson, has he been on Meet the Press before?

CT: I actually, he has, not in a full, I had him on when we were doing the Ferguson panel. I had him on in that. And then he’s been on the panel before. But not on a, this is more of not in an interview setting like this, just focused, really, on his presidential ambitions. So I’m looking forward to it. I’ve actually interviewed him. I did an hour long interview with him on C-SPAN for his book about a year ago. You know how they do the BookTV thing.

HH: Right.

CT: And it’s, he was surprised. I’m like you. I actually read the books when you do book interviews.

HH: Yup.

CT: You’re one of those rare people that reads the books.

HH: Yup.

CT: Scary for an author sometimes, but he’s, you know, obviously intellectually very nimble on a lot of stuff. So yeah, I enjoy interviewing him.

HH: The interesting thing I found after Mitt Romney withdrew, and I briefed some of his consulting team, the most unusual finding they found, when they went out and polled, and they polled, is that Ben Carson is in 2nd place in Iowa with a very healthy 14-20%, depending on what night you’re asking, which is not going to move, I think, Chuck Todd. That’s not a political vote. That’s not an assessment of electability. That’s just pure charisma, isn’t it?

CT: Well, it’s funny, I think it’s, you know, he struck his original chord on faith. Remember it was at the National Prayer Breakfast.

HH: Right.

CT: And so I want to spend more time understanding that vote. But it strikes me as he is, you know, he is a problem for Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, that they’re fishing in the same social conservative pond together. I think that’s less of a problem for Walker. You know, Walker can sort of, you know, he’s got a couple of different voting ponds he’s fishing out of, I think, when it comes to the different conservative legs of the conservative stool. But that’s what I’m curious about here with Carson, sort of can he build? Can he get that 35? Can he get to get to 35 or 40% in some way by building different pieces of the conservative wing?

HH: Now I want to do winners and losers with you very quickly. Big winner today, Cleveland Cavaliers crushing the Golden State Warriors last night. My intern is wearing a Cavs hat. Number two, the Cleveland Browns signed Josh McGowan today out of Tampa Bay, so we’re quarterbacked for next year.

CT: What do you think of the new color? Wait, what do you think of the new color?

HH: Oh, I love the new color.

CT: Okay.

HH: It’s a new, it’s Super Bowl time. It’s getting ready for Cleveland, new Cleveland in 2016. But what about the CPAC? Who won and who lost, Chuck Todd, do you think, coming out of CPAC with all the coverage is just wrapped up. There’ll be some parties tomorrow and tonight, but the big names have made their big news. Who won and who lost?

CT: Well, I guess it depends on how you, look, I think Walker was more winner than loser. Yes, he stepped in it with his line, I think, but in a weird way, even though he, what we learned about Walker was how much other conservatives trying to be the anti-Bush challenger were so quick to pounce on him. It’s, he’s clearly a frontrunner. And there was so much enthusiasm for Walker there. So I’ve got to say Walker was a winner. You know, I’ve not, to call Christie a loser is not fair, because I think he was sort of going in low. But I would say of the, I mean, I guess if you’re going to do, I would say the losers collectively are a Perry, a Rubio, and folks like that, simply because they didn’t get a pop.

CT: Yeah, no Cruz, they didn’t get the pop. And I think you know, these guys that are sitting in the mid-single digits, you know, they need, Bobby Jindal’s in that group, you know, they need a moment to pop to get themselves into that first-tier conversation.

HH: Well said. And by the way, winner of the week is Meet the Press. You had your first win ever as host. Congratulations. Dylan Byers wrote that up.

CT: Well, it’s our second, but this one was a clean win.

HH: A clean win?

CT: A non-debut. So I look at it, you know, it was a non-debut. We won on the debut. But this was….

HH: Well, I hope we help you…

CT: …pressure on you, Hewitt, though, pressure on you, Hugh…

HH: I know.

CT: …because the last time you were on, we had a good, you know, I think we won the demo, or came in second in the other. So it was a good week. But now, we’ve got to keep it up.

HH: I’m hoping Ben Carson and Kevin McCarthy do that. The panel’s also great, except for the guy from California who’s flying in tonight. See you on Sunday, Chuck Todd, on the next Meet the Press.

]]>http://www.kvoi.com/hugh-hewitt/chuck-todd-on-the-cpac-proceedings/feed/0Dennis Kucinich – Rebecca Costahttp://www.kvoi.com/rebecca-costa/dennis-kucinich-rebecca-costa/
http://www.kvoi.com/rebecca-costa/dennis-kucinich-rebecca-costa/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 02:03:51 +0000http://kvoi.com/rebecca-costa/dennis-kucinich-rebecca-costa/Dennis Kucinich is a former U.S. Representative from Ohio’s 10th Congressional district who served from 1997 to 2013. He was also a candidate for the Democratic Party for President in 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections. During his time in office, Kucinich was subcommittee Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and also served on […]

Dennis Kucinich is a former U.S. Representative from Ohio’s 10th
Congressional district who served from 1997 to 2013. He was also a
candidate for the Democratic Party for President in 2004 and 2008
Presidential elections. During his time in office, Kucinich was
subcommittee Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee
and also served on the Education and the Workforce Committee. After
serving his term as a U.S. Representative, he became a political
analyst. In 2013, he joined the Fox News Channel as a regular
contributor.